88 — Hiding in Plain Sight
“It was Snape,” growled Ron, again.
They were in the common Room. While the other Gryffindors were partying and hailing their achievement in finally beating the Slytherins, the animagi were discussing something else.
The fillies, as well as Hermione and Ginny, were glaring darkly at nothing in particular.
“I don’t care what Hagrid says about that git being a professor. Or that Headmaster Dumbledore says he has ‘complete confidence’ in the bloody wizard!” Ron continued, angrily crossing his fore-legs and mirroring the five witches.
“Language!” Hermione said to him sharply. Then she nodded. “The Defence Against the Dark Arts book, The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, says that unless you’re sending a one-off spell, you have to maintain constant view of your target and continue casting the spell. And I saw Professor Snape staring at you, Harry, and mumbling constantly.” She frowned. “And it didn’t stop until I set his robes on fire!” she hissed quietly.
They all quickly looked around to see if anyone had heard her.
“But, why?” said Harry. “I haven’t done anything wrong in class, or to him.”
Neville spoke up. “He has been watching you especially.”
They turned to him and stared.
He shrugged anxiously. “He makes me nervous,” he said, twisting his hands together, “sneaking up on me and yelling about everything I do. I can’t concentrate and I make lots of mistakes.” He took a breath and steadied himself. “But he watches you, Harry.”
He shivered, “I try to watch out for him, and so I’ve seen him with other students. Even when he’s with the Slytherins, he still keeps his eyes on you. I don’t think he likes you at all, in particular.”
Ron’s frown was making deep furrows in his forehead. “And remember how he picked on you the first day in class? Asking you those questions? And then took away points for no reason later?”
Neville nervously laughed. “I melt cauldrons, and you still lose more points than I do!”
Sweetie Belle looked at him. “He hates you for no reason,” she said.
The others all nodded in agreement.
Scootaloo slowly smiled. “Perhaps we should return the favour.” She looked at the others. “A bully is a bully,” she said slowly. “And it’s not like Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, all talk. He takes points from Harry and us, and our House, just because he can. He’s a terrible teacher and he’s hurtin’ our chances to learn. And he jinxed Harry for no reason. Harry could’ve been hurt if he fell.”
“Hurt?” exclaimed Ron, “At that height? Without his wand? He could’ve died! At the very least he would’ve gone to hospital with a mess of broken bones! He would have spent days in hospital.”
Neville nodded. He knew all about falling and getting hurt. He was very clumsy, he knew.
The fillies looked him, puzzled. They had always thought Neville’s fall in Broomstick riding class had been a fluke injury. Pegasi, well, Rainbow Dash in particular, regularly crashed from higher than that — and while going lots faster — and usually got off with being dazed. Rarely did she actually get hurt bad enough to go to a hospital.
Then they noticed Harry as he nodded reluctantly. Their eyes went wide at the thought that a short fall could cause such severe harm, then narrowed dangerously.
It was very quiet for a moment in animagi corner of the Gryffindor Common Room, despite the party that surrounded them. The witches currently relaxing by grooming the ponies were listening intently. Their expressions showed their surprise at the ponies not knowing how dangerous a fall from a broom might be, especially from the height at which Harry had been cruising. They knew from their Quidditch games that the pegasi were rugged, especially after seeing some of the crashes that they had had. Even hits by the Bludgers had barely fazed them. Still, Quidditch was a dangerous game and falls were taken seriously.
Scootaloo stared off into the distance for a moment. Then she said, “I think we should pay him back. Rainbow certainly would!” She looked at the other two fillies, who were nodding, then at Hermione and Ginny who were listening with wide-eyes. “We should start pranking him.”
Hermione gasped, “We’ll get in trouble!” as the others looked thoughtful or worried, depending on their dispositions. And dislike for a certain professor.
Their groomers were silent, not wishing to draw attention to the group. From their expressions, they wouldn’t mind a few pranks on the git of the dungeons. As long as they were not implicated in the aftermath, of course. None of them were Slytherins, and each had his or her own reasons for wanting revenge on the professor.
“But how?” wondered Neville. “I mean, how could we get him? He’s an adult and knows far more about magic and potions than we do.”
“We don’t have to. Someone else who knows more than us, could,” Ron said as he grinned and looked over his shoulder at his brothers.
Scootaloo’s smile got bigger. “Not if we hire someone to do it for us.” She, too, turned and looked across the room at the twins before turning back. “It’s not like we can’t afford it, is it?” The other two fillies began to smile, as well.
Hermione, Neville, and Ginny started to look nervous. It was one thing to talk about pranking a professor — they had all had that fantasy — but to actually follow through and do it?
Harry sighed. He’d rather forget about it and ignore the wizard as best he could. If you didn’t react to their taunts, bullies soon lost interest. Unless the bully was his cousin. He was too stupid to lose interest.
But the fillies were an unstoppable force. To them, saying, “Don’t do that,” or “It’s dangerous,” was a challenge.
On the other hoof, he smiled slightly, the twins would prevent things from going too far. It was, after all, limited to what they could actually achieve. Unlike his three filly friends who managed to accomplish things he was sure should not have been possible for anyone.
Noticing that the animagi were all staring at them, the twins worked their way over to the group. It took only a few moments to explain what the group knew and what they wanted. The twins were more than happy to prank the “git” in exchange for monetary compensation. The more extensive the prank, the more they could earn, everyone decided.
Under peer pressure, Hermione quickly devised a schedule for how much a prank could earn, based on the length of time it lasted, how funny it was, and how convoluted. Any necessary material was covered at cost. Harry could tell she was secretly pleased at everyone depending on her to develop a fair system. She promised the twins a more formal schedule later.
Both sides felt it was an agreeable contract that they finally settled upon, especially with the ten galleon primer fee.
The plotters spent the rest of the party making a list of possible pranks, and laughing at what they imagined the Professor’s reactions would be. And it was definitely not a case of too many cooks spoiling the soup. Even the groomers added their two bits to the plan. It was going to be a vastly amusing next couple of months, if not the rest of the year.
Professor Snape would never know what hit him — to their immense satisfaction.
And the twins were not bothered at the possibility of long or repeated detentions. Not when it involved earning money towards their goal. And those detentions just gave them that much more time to plot pranks.
The animagi just would have to make up the lost points in their classes.
They planned to start Monday morning with a potion on his chair that used his body-heat to activate. He wouldn’t be able to get up from his chair — he would be stuck to it. And a simple finite was not the cure. The twins would brew it tomorrow.
Then, for the next morning, they planned for his robes to change to a pink, blue, and green plaid — slanted from the horizontal just enough to be annoying to see. His robes would appear normal, to him. Others, however, would see the new colours and designs just fine.
With the help of a certain pair of winged animagi, painting the required runes above his apartment door would be . . . foal’s play.
That prank would turn out to be the twins’ major earner. The runes above the door to his rooms did the trick — they were written with invisible ink and keyed only to Professor Snape. A loose hair collected earlier and stuck to the runes had finished them.
The runes chose random clashing colours and went off only once a week, never two days in a row. And delayed the colours appearing by half-an-hour to three hours so the professor never tweaked to exactly where it was happening to him. The notice-me-not included in the runes prevented his detection of the change. Or the runes.
Later they added to the runes so that the alterations lasted only until he or someone else cast a strong finite. Which, to everyone else’s delight, would only happen after someone directly mentioned them to him — several times. Just once didn’t work.
Changing clothes would never work as a solution on that day. The new clothes also changed, to a new pattern and with a different time delay. He would be convinced he had been jinxed by someone in the corridors.
The runes always wore off at midnight. No one could say the pranksters were damaging property.
Much later, the twins altered the runes so that when the finite was cast it appeared to work, but, instead, triggered another delayed spell that turned his hair to Gryffindor colours. Which he would, again, only notice if someone pointed it out to him — repeatedly.
In the meantime, during the party, the group amused themselves thinking up new pranks.
۸-_-۸
Elly couldn’t believe her luck. Whether it was good luck or bad, she wasn’t sure.
Getting the letter to Hogwarts had been a surprise, but it would get her training in this world’s magic without suspicion or cost to her. Plus, her instructors had always said that schools were a good source of ambient love — mostly the colts and fillies for their parents and vice versa.
Hogwarts was a boarding school, meaning few, if any, parents ever visited. That was bad as it meant much fewer opportunities than she had expected to harvest love. No parents dropping off or picking up their little ones.
However, nearby Hogsmeade was home to Madam Puddifoots, which was good. Love was plentiful there.
As a First Year student she couldn’t visit Hogsmeade until third year, which was bad. Very bad. Unless she could sneak out without getting caught by the various checks the older students did to keep track of the younger students. But then again, there were definite advantages to being a form-changing ling!
Many girls attended Hogwarts to get their Mrs. Degree, she had learned. Which was good. The students’ mutual desires for mates would provide love in abundance.
The school severely restricted the students from getting together, which was bad. Their policies kept the students studying and in classes to keep them occupied, and made them sleep in separate dormitories. That severely restricted her opportunities.
The students could get together at meal times, however, and during study periods if they kept their activities to a low key. There would be more than one couple staring into each other’s eyes soulfully instead of studying. Which was good.
However, if she tried to hang out with couples, people would quickly notice and chase her, a young and “innocent” Firstie away. That was bad. She didn’t want to draw attention, not at all. Safety lay in hiding in the background.
But if she could manage to sit by older couples, she could feed while they interacted during meal times. And she pretended to eat the food on the plates. That was good.
There were ponies here! That was very, very bad. And she had almost fled when she realized just who those wandering adults were.
But they didn’t notice her at all, which was good! Then she heard they were leaving soon, which was even better.
However there were three fillies here! That was not good. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the adults, but it definitely wasn’t good.
Except, they were veritable fountains of love. Which was more than just good — if she could get close enough without alarming them.
Her first week in Hogwarts had been tiring in many ways. She had had to stay on her tip-hooves in maintaining just the right amount of tragedy to keep the sympathy and love flowing from her fellow Hufflepuffs. She didn’t want it turning into unusable out-right pity, however. Nor suspicions that she was milking the situation to her advantage.
She had subtly altered her appearance to better evoke feelings of sibling love, depending on who was around her at the time. It wasn’t a lot, minor tweaking of her base form, but it helped. She wouldn’t starve if she carefully shepherded her reserves. It helped that she never had to use her disguise magic.
She wasn’t sure how that worked — she had never been able to tweak her appearance as a ling, before. Maybe it was a skill innate in her new base form? In any case, there was no green glow to give away her magic at work.
The classes had been easy for her, but the make-up studying had been tedious. The book-walking spell had turned dreary memorization into a simple romp. She had already finished her first-year books and started on the second year books in the library.
She pretended to take longer than she needed on the assigned essays so she could continue to bask in the feelings of the more amorous older students, and the friendly younger ones who helped her.
The wizards tended to be more lustful than the witches and it took her only moments to separate the serious couples from the lustful ones. She preferred the serious couples, especially when the feelings of love were mutual between the two. And sitting nearby studying wasn’t hard to justify.
While in the classes themselves, she had carefully watched around her. She made sure she always performed in the middle, only average, when doing practicals. She didn’t want to either be in the front or the rear of the class standings. She always made sure she was non-descript, average in everything — even her appearance. However, the large number of practicals she had to do to catch up had been a strain on her reserves and she was definitely, at first, using more than she was getting.
It had been in charms class that she had first noticed the three fillies surrounding the student everyone else told her was Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived. The flow from three fillies and lesser flows from the two witches that sat with them had been intriguing. Not as powerful as the older students in relationships, but getting there. That had been her turning point.
Sitting near them at lunch had been interesting. She had especially appreciated the feelings that were closer to what she had experienced in Ponyville.
It wasn’t long before she made it a habit to sit close to them in their combined classes. It was risky, but then the pay-off in love reserves was well worth it. She varied her seat a bit. Sometimes beside them, sometimes behind. Always within a desk-length of them.
Luckily for her, the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors got along well and there was inter-House mixing during the classes.
Even with practicing spell-casting in the evenings eating away at her stocks, she was still coming out ahead on love storage. Enough that she had managed, in the last month, to put a week’s worth of love in jar. It had been stressful, at times, always working at getting the required sustenance. Now that she had established an adequate feeding schedule, she could begin to relax.
It was actually quite a poor showing for her time as an infiltrator. But then, she wasn’t trying to gather enough for a trip back to the hive she didn’t have. What she was stockpiling in her trunk was just for her emergency use only. And she was pleased with her harvesting rate. No one would ever know she was here.
In many ways she found Hogwarts rather comforting. It was like a hive training cluster, and she could almost fool herself, sometimes, that she was back in the badlands. Except she was surreptitiously feeding off her fellow trainees.
She hadn’t tried to brave the Gryffindor Common Room before this weekend. It meant a long time in close confinement with the fillies and the wizard of their interest without the distraction for them of paying attention to a classes’ professor. She was worried they might notice her watching them. And, based on what the other Hufflepuff witches had said, she wasn’t sure she could gather enough love to make it worth the risk.
But the celebration of their win over the Slytherins should make the room rowdy enough to conceal her presence with the other Hufflepuffs. At least, if the stories of the Gryffindor parties were accurate.
And while it was true that the Hufflepuffs hadn’t won a game or anything, the Slytherins had lost to someone else. That was apparently something worth celebrating. A vicarious victory, of sorts.
Not like the ponies who tended to celebrate for the sake of celebrating anything there was to celebrate.
She almost fell over when she entered Gryffindor. Only the group of Hufflepuffs with her staved off that public embarrassment.
The Gryffindor Common Room was awash with emotion and people. Elly had never felt anything like it. There was love, lust, happiness, camaraderie — even jealousy — all hitting her like a giant wave. It felt like she was walking through a fog, or under water — without the fish swimming around her, just people.
The sounds and smells that hit her were more like a wall. There was music coming from a record-player in one corner, a wizarding-radio in another corner, and a second record-player in a third corner. Someone had put up sound barriers to reflect the music into its quarter of the room.
Couples were dancing everywhere, some of them even moving in time to the music. Two witches were dancing with each other on a table, with several wizards cheering them on.
Elly’s instructors had taught her, and her entire infiltrator cohort, how to dance. And included both quadrupedal and bipedal forms. And included the formal dances the major races preferred. The bumping, bouncing, and grinding she was seeing was more of a primitive mating dance than what she expected of an advanced civilization.
A few couples were making out, both standing up and sitting on the couches. She could pick out jealousy coming from several wizards and witches watching the snogging couples. And envy.
Everyone was talking, singing, or enthusiastically yelling words nobody could understand. It was all very loud. And no sign of a professor or Head of House.
There were several cakes, mostly eaten, sitting on the tables. Beside them were empty and full bottles of butterbeer. She was positive she could smell fire-whiskey. She hoped she was right. Based on her times in Ponyville, drunks were much more likely to be effusive about their feeling. Or they fell asleep.
Elly had never seen or heard of anything like this party. Her instructors had never even hinted such a thing could happen. Pony celebrations were sedate affairs by comparison. This was close to a pony riot, and guards would have been called to bring some order. But here there were only happy students.
She sidled over to one side of the entrance, her back to the wall, and just took it all in. Several of the ponies were ponies and getting petted and groomed. They were all in cluster at one side and she could feel their blissful contentment and happiness. A steady flow of low level love there, but it didn’t matter. There was more love in other directions.
The changeling slowly worked her way around the edges of the room. She wanted to get closer to the couples she had noticed that were not just driven by lust. After a few minutes, she sat down and just . . . drank it down beside one of the couches. Those that might have noticed before were too busy dancing, arguing, and talking.
Her targets were too involved in enjoying the closeness of their partner to care. And because they were out in public, no one could complain about her presence — if they noticed her at all. She was literally hiding in plain sight without any disguise or camouflage at all. She had never heard of such a possibility. It was frightening and exhilarating.
She could feel her reserves filling up at an incredible rate. If it continued like this, she would get drunk on it if she weren’t careful.
She remained for an hour, watching and listening. She saw the Weasley twins make their way to the ponies. The flow of emotions changed several minutes before their arrival, and became sharper, more edged, as the level of love dropped, despite their warm smiles.
After an hour, she furtively snuck out of the room and into the corridor. The quiet was almost deafening, and she suddenly felt cold compared to the room she had just left.
She ran back to the Hufflepuff dorm. She hurriedly made and filled two jars with her reserves. She reduced herself to the bare minimum, no more than two days’ worth. She then secreted the jars in her trunk in the hidden closet. Afterwards, she returned to the party in Gryffindor. A feast like this was unheard of, and she intended to make the most of it!
The ponies were still plotting, she could tell, but the happiness and love flow was slowly climbing to what it had been. That they were plotting made her very nervous. She managed to creep close enough to determine that she wasn’t the target.
Discovering that they were plotting to prank a teacher, and planned to do so for the rest of the year left her wide-eyed. It was obviously an opportunity for her. She could get an advantage if she warned him.
But the more she considered it, the less attractive such a deal became. After several mentions of potions, dungeon bat, and slimy git, she figured out that their target was Professor Snape. He was not a source of love. Quite the contrary, actually. Students leaving his class were useless to her until much later in the day. And any time assignments came out, so did a veritable cloud of dismay.
Helping him would generate no love. It had the distinct possibility of actually working against her if others found out she had disclosed the pranksters to him. People would take note of her and avoid her, which would make collection extremely difficult.
On the other hoof, if she worked behind the scenes to support the pranksters . . . .
She would have to be careful. An occasional word here or there to throw suspicions to others. Perhaps a random comment that she had seen someone besides the pranksters researching a book about the sort of thing that had befallen the Professor. Joking about her, by chance, hearing someone planning a prank — not that she knew that this prank was the one they were talking about, of course.
The party lasted until quite early in the morning. And she milked it for all it was worth. From almost one to five jars — an incredible haul for a single night!
Compared to what she managed to gather during a normal day at Hogwarts, her decision to attend the party tonight was definitely a good one. And boded well for her future in this new world. She could count on at least three more parties, more than enough to build up a year’s back-supply of love. A big enough cushion to begin building a hive.
And, best of all, nobody, and no pony, had ever suspected what she was doing. All any of them ever saw was an average-looking Hufflepuff First Year girl quietly sitting on the floor behind an occupied couch, drinking her butterbeer and watching everything with a wide and happy smile. She hadn’t even needed to change from her default form.
۸-_-۸
Stats
Page generated in 0.035 seconds
Total duration
1,087 users online
1,696,979 hits today, 1,996,409 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Good job all around for both groups. I hope Elly can break the conditioning that her former “Queen” gave her.
Somehow I imagine the changeling sending "Home-Made honey" for her Granny in the pony side
9403442
Oh yeah, I could see that, but only if the changeling could open a portal back to Equestria so not to go through the pony portal that Harry had found and is now under pony control.
Poor Snape. With the background knowledge we, the omniscient audience have, he's not having a good time at all.
Imagine being a mathematical genius, studying quantum theory. Then, you are made to teach introductory maths, and have a standardized textbook shoved in your face. You must teach first, and second, and third, and so on, up to seventh-grade maths, by yourself, according to this standardized textbook. Who cares if you could improve nearly every page, that's not the proper way to do it.
Oh, and there's four houses to teach, because why not. And no, you don't get any help or teaching assistants, why would you need that?
That's the situation Snape is in, teaching basic fundamentals to scores of students who insist on the potions equivalent of 2+2=22, when he ought to be teaching perhaps a dozen students a post-graduate course.
And now someone is going out of their way to make his life miserable. Honestly, what if this time he just left? In spite of his loyalty to Dumbledore, what if he just packed it in and went back to the private sector where he might actually find some measure of respect?
Right up until she goes through one of the doorways warded with Twilight's runes.
Woohoo! An update before I had to leave for work! So the CMC are pranking Snape now, in collaboration with the Weasley twins. The man may actually kill somebody before the year is done.
Nice to see Elly is doing well. I can't help but to wonder where she goes from here, though. Looking forward to the next chapter!
Let's hope that the CMC manage to help Elly break free of her psychological programming.
Neat
“At that height? Without his wand?"
Correction: Quiddich players are allowed to keep their wands. What they can *not* do is hex other players, the balls, or a few hundred other things listed in Quiddich Through the Ages. However, at this age, he has not learned the Arresto Momentum spell (used in the movie during the Gringotts robbery), so a fall from that altitude could be quite fatal.
9403466
Still kind of a dick though.
but yeah, kind of get where you're coming from.
9403531
With a job like that, anyone would be. Storms only know how long he's been at this, I'd have left a long time ago. Or at least demanded another teacher be found to teach basic potions 101 so that I could focus on those who actually know something.
9403470
She has. Several times. The kicker is, the portal gave her a human form, same as any other Equestrian. This is her native form now, she'll probably never opt for that old changeling form again. There's just no need for it.
9403466
I mean he does often pick on students. On the other hand he was trying to save Harry so it makes it hard to support the CMC's decision to torment him. Say what you will about Snape he does care about the safety of the students despite how this fic portrays him in regard to the potion incidents.
Uh... Too obvious .
Otherwise, BRILLIANT.
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/6/6d/CMC_relishing_plan_S3E4.png/revision/latest?cb=20121130020022
9403470
Good point, I thought Twilight already installed the Changeling Detectors.
Or is Dumbledore waiting until Christmas Break to set them up?
9403545
Considering how often wizards ignore the obvious (such as using a band with runes to hide flying owls as daytime average birds so muggles never notice them), it's a good strategy for high school students.
9403562
Too be fair runes don't exist in the canon of either series. Well ok HP has runes but they are just an ancient language. Neither series has the magical variety of runes.
9403544
He's a terrible teacher who bullies his students, they have no reason to suspect that he was trying to save Harry and every reason (some strange irrational dislike of Harry combined with the house rivalry and Snape's general jerkass behavior) to suspect that he would attack Harry, yes we know that Snape is a hero but he is also a terrible person who in no way should be teaching children and since he is intentionally hiding the best parts of his character (his sense of loyalty which rivals Rainbow Dash's and his undying love for Lily) all that comes across to people not named Albus Dumbledore is that Snape is an overly prideful selfish possibly evil jerk who can't let go of an old school grudge against a man who has been dead for over a decade and let's it color his opinion of the man's son just because they look alike even though most people who knew James and Lily would be able to tell that Harry get's his personality primarily from Lily. Harry may look like his father but he sees the world though his mother's eye both literally and figuratively and Snape just can't reconize that.
9403575
We don't know what runes are capable of since Harry our PoV character in the books didn't take that class.
9403589
In his defense it's not like anyone ever tries to get to know him. They just see what's on the surface which is what lead to his sour attitude in the first place. I don't believe he's a terrible teacher (other than his attitude problem) he clearly is able to teach students effectively since he would never pass anyone if they didn't know their stuff.
Personally I like the interpretation that he's harsh because screwing up a potion could be lethal. He could stand to be nicer but his poor attitude alone doesn't make him a terrible teacher.
Hymn .... i think shes gonna be very confused about the emotions snape gives off towards harry. How can you hate and care about someone at the same time. Sorry to say it but the mauraders were bullies .... snapes attitude is partially their fault ... years of bullying makes for a bitter mean person. I think once they find out about snapes counter curse their gonna feel horrible. Once they find out snapes reason for hating harry bet they try to show him the magic of friendship .... which causes him to make a run for it before he feels anything ... lol.
9403596
We never see magical runes ever in the entire series so it's safe to say they do not exist.
9403589
Yes, he does hate teaching, and he's fully aware that he's unsuited for it. Which really isn't doing his temper any good. Honestly, it might be better for everyone involved if he was just a little less loyal. If Snape went to Dumbledore and threatened to give notice effective immediately, he could probably get a better deal. like some competent help, or another teacher to handle the introductory courses.
But no, he's going to stick it out. And make everyone, including himself, quite miserable.
Alright, so a decent chapter. I admit to having been just a bit disappointed by not getting to have things for the actual match, but I can assume that basically means things went as they did in the book. The chapter actually ended on a finishing note and didn't give the impression that it was starting in the middle or end of another.
That said, I'm also left with a feeling of "Meh" for this chapter. This doesn't really... advance anything. It moves us past the quidditch game and shows them having fun, but it doesn't feel like we've gotten anywhere. The perspective of things from Elly's case was certainly interesting but I feel it could also have easily been (if you were willing to go over 5000 words) have been a middle section to a longer chapter, with perhaps Dumbledore discussing things with the other professors and even finally dealing with Snape, something I'm sure many are looking forward to.
This overall feels like a filler chapter, albeit a decent and fun to read filler chapter, which is better than the last chapter at least.
I'd like to see more influence coming from the sort of plots that are standard in My Little Pony material. Specifically, the reformation of bad eggs.
Sunset Shimmer went from evil demon to broken and shattered in thirty seconds, and happily took a friendly hand extended to her.
I always hated that the books only really reformed Snape after he died.
Twilight would not approve of the pranking. Even if she has issues with his teaching and behavior. Would be interesting if somepony managed to learn of the whole Lily angle. Snape loved Lily. He hated Harry because he saw James in him, and frankly, James was a total dick. How about something happening that causes him to see Lily in Harry.
Okay. Real talk. When I read this paragraph, I had to pause for a few seconds. This hits WAY too close to home. Story time.
Back when I was in grade 7, there was a student named Malcolm. Portly blonde type.
Each and every day, he would get bullied. Each and every day a teacher would be told. However, exach and everuy following day, surprise, surprise, he'd get bullied AGAIN.
It got to be so bad that he was getting to transfer to a new school. I overheard one student saying "Alright. This is Malcolm's last day here. Let's make it his WORST."
After that, I realized, being the next most heavyset kid there, I would be the next target. So, despite my spare tire, I learned to get REALLY stealthy. To weave through crowds in such a way that I wouldn't bump into anyone. To be REALLY aware of my surroundings. To know the punchlines to all the jokes. To make having my gut sucked in my default stance.
I survved the school year un-bullied. Barely. Malcolm, on the day he left, had two black eyes and a swollen lip.
9403606
Snape can't leave. Dumbledore is literally the only reason he isn't currently locked up in Azkaban.
9403623
So he's stuck then. Either he does a job he hates and is terrible at, or he can rot in wizard jail with the soul-sucking monsters.
Yey.
Also,I'm just gonna put this here...
Uh-oh. Did she say begin building a hive?!?! Given the changelings can metamorphize is she building up enough love to become a Queen and start spawning? This could be bad.
9403632
Yeah but don't feel too bad. Snape only ever cared about Lilly and only betrayed Voldemort after he failed to convince him to spare her.
9403466
Actually, I should note here something that the internet figured out years after the last of the books had released that you might find interesting. Snape wasn't teaching them by the book. He was teaching them better recipes ... just without saying it because he really isn't a very good teacher.
How'd people figure that out? Well, when Snape is the potions teacher, he put everything they would create up on the board. The students who followed the directions did just fine, including Hermione.
When Slughorn takes over, he uses the recipes from the books. And Hermione starts failing to produce grade-A potions, while Harry does because he's using Snape's old book, which has his notes in the margins.
Yeah, Snape was teaching all the students his versions of potion recipes, which were much better than and included better techniques than the "classic" approach. He just never told anyone because he's not good at teaching.
9403466
Actually, what you mention beforehand is something that could happen. Perhaps Dumbledore could have Snape teach an advanced potions course instead of the basic ones, and even offer, for a cost of course, such lessons/classes to older witches and wizards who wish to learn and study higher level potion making and the like.
9403470
Nope. All that would happen currently is the bidpedal form she's already making use of being revealed, so it's only a problem if she's transformed into someone else or has used enough magic to add/tweak to her appearance.
9403544
Ehh, I'd say he's more sticking to a sort of promise/feeling for his old love for Lily Potter. And loyalty to Dumbledore.
That being said, Snape does have issues and probably really shouldn't be teaching anything but the last two to three years of potions classes. He doesn't seem to deal well with kids, and until 5th-7th year that's basically what he's dealing with.
Alternatively, perhaps Snape or someone else, Equestrians perhaps, could make a point that the very absolute basics of potion making should be something taught at home, but that would put a disadvantage on muggle born students.
9403560
Dumbledore might already know- it's possible the new map thing is able to figure out when someone is a changeling. Which might actually make sense for him.
9403562
To be fair, we're speaking of that from the perspective of muggles, who constantly seek to innovate.
The wizarding world is basically in it's own equivalent of the Ming and Qing China isolationism- why innovate when what we have and do works?
9403575
That's actually something that never really made sense to me for either series. Magical runes would fit in either one of them and make sense, especially for the Harry Potter world.
9403589
To be fair again, Snape hasn't really interacted with Harry. I still think given a chance early on, especially for Harry to learn that Snape knew his parents, and even had feelings for his mother and it was that which allowed Lily to not just be killed outright... perhaps in the right circumstances, some of Snapes hostility could be dealt with.
But the books never went that route and as far as I recall spent most of the time letting Snape play antagonist.
9403604
We saw the perspective of one boy in one country and just because we didn't see runes doesn't mean they don't exist it's entirely possible that in canon runes exist but either aren't in use anymore for whatever reason or British wizards just don't use them, or Harry simply never came across them and if he did failed to recognize them and so we never learned about them.
9403600
He's harsh in and out of the classroom and Slughorn who is much nicer to students is a much more effective teacher even if the guy's morals are a little questionable bullying and putting down your students at every turn while showing client favoritism are never okay for a teacher, also no one aside from Lily, Dumbledore and the Death Eaters ever took a second look at him because his attitude was a huge turn off. After all what reasonable person would want to get to know someone who presents themselves as Snape does? I personally know of none and that makes Lily look like a saint for even being willing to try befriending someone as off-putting as even a young Snape was shown to be.
9403602
Yes the Marauders were bullies and their actions towards Snape was unacceptable, but he was a creepy child who was of-putting to everyone except Lily and ended up falling in with the Death Eaters so Snape isn't innocent here either, he did create the potentially deadly Sectumsempra curse to use against his enemies and from what I understand nearly used it on James who only managed to avoid it by disarming Snape and he does hold an unreasonable grudge against James which he unjustly holds against Harry, Snape's hatred of James Potter is understandable but none of it justifies his actions or attitude and the Marauder's general dislike for Snape also makes sense given their extreme ideological differences on the Dark Arts but again that does not excuse the bullying and cruel and at one time potentially lethal pranks.
9403606
Dumbledore could also arrange for Snape to have a position he could thrive in, Dumbledore doesn't need Snape to be a teacher at the school their are other jobs where he would be of use that Snape probably would enjoy.
9403663
Yes but convincing Snape to take a look at Harry without seeing James would be an uphill battle but should Snape realize how much Harry takes after Lily things would be very different between them. This makes me wonder how things would be if Harry was born a girl who took after Lily physically as well as mentally.
Talk about the enemy of your enemy being your friend!
9403660
Is that right? Well what do you know?
I'd rather like Twilight to meet this man, a bit of earnest conversation might reveal what he can do, and what he can't. Demonstrating and researching potions with the Equestrians would likely be a job far better suited to him. He'd probably love being the first wizard to study and catalog Equestrian potion techniques and ingredients.
9403660
Never heard of that but that actually makes a lot of sense.
9403682
You know, now that I'm thinking about it, the best one to "defuse" Snape would probably be Cadance. She'd walk into the room and immediately know (or quickly figure out, depending on your "Alicorn of Love" headcanon) what was going on with Snape and Harry. Give her an hour in a closed room with Snape to talk it over and he'd probably come out not healed, but with recently wet eyes and the beginnings of a healing.
Snape couldn't let Lily go, and that's where everything with him was flawed. He let the beginnings of love turn into something bitter. Cadance would see right through that.
9403680
Knowing the internet, such a thing exists.
Also knowing the internet, there are several ways said thing that exists went.
9403692
Aiet, that story would have her weeping. Yes, Candace needs to meet Severus, if only so that we can have the scene of a pink alicorn desperately hugging a man for no apparent reason.
Because she would surely see his pain even if no one else could.
9403612
Snape never loved Lily in any real and meaningful way; he idolized her memory, and while she was alive he pretty much creepy-stalked her after he destroyed their friendship.
9403664
He fought in a war if runes existed he would have come across them. Voldemort would have made use of them especially if they were an obscure form of magic noone knew about.
I can accept they might exist somewhere but as far the setting of both HP series and Fantastic Beasts are concerned Runes don't appear to exist in this universe.
I’m still wondering how the talk between Snape and Dumbledore went after his chat with Lyra and BonBon, since it was (I believe) at least a few days ago in the story but Snape seems to be unchanged in his methods.
Also, I’m wondering what the hell the School’s budget is like if they are understaffed, but don’t have to pay for maintenance or cleaning staff, probably have a minuscule food budget when food can be magically duplicated... I mean, there’s like the pay for two dozen teachers (at most!) and that’s it! They could even be paid less because most (if not all) board at the school. This is the only magical school in Britain but Dumbledore is worried how to convince the governors and Ministry to give it more budget than an elementary school?
What? Even Hermione?
Poor misguided Elly. You have never met the CMC.
9403716
Again they might not be in use anymore or just not in use in Europe or America, doesn't mean they don't exist in the setting.
9403699
I know but knowing the internet shifting through those to find an example that is both plausible and well written is difficult if not nearly impossible.
did the runes not work? could have swore they put changeling detection runes in the school....hmm